NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9339

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Subject: Salvador: New opportunities after accords
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/** reg.elsalvador: 145.0 **/
** Topic: New Openings in El Salvador **
** Written  4:33 pm  Dec 12, 1992 by ttomasko in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
New Openings for Political Action After El Salvador Accords

From The Militant, December 4, 1992

By Ron Roberts

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador--"Attention FMLN zone" reads the
sign at the entrance to a UN-supervised Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN) camp located at the Nacaspilo canton in
the San Vicente province.

    We arrive with Elmer Guzman, 37, the camp commander,
after a two-hour car ride from San Salvador, the capitol. For the
first time since he joined the guerrilla struggle 14 years earlier,
he has been attending meetings without risking his life, making
use of the newly won space for political activity under the UN-
brokered agreements between the government and the FMLN.

    Just before entering the camp-proper we pass a UN station
with a sealed railroad car containing 60 percent  of the FMLN
arms from the camp, pending final destruction with the
fulfillment of the accords. This is one of dozens of agreed-upon
areas for FMLN forces to bivouac, which are off-limits to the
army. The camp, which originally housed 267 guerrillas, is now
nearly empty. Most FMLN combatants here have been
demobilized or have temporarily returned to their land to help in
the harvests.

    The accords, reached through negotiations that began in
April 1990 and signed on January 16, 1992, bring to an end a
decade-long civil war. More than 75,000 died during the war--the
vast majority peasants, workers, and students killed by the
Salvadoran government and its death squads--20,000 were
wounded, and nearly one million were displaced from their
houses.

    Salvadorans joined in big rallies at the beginning of this
year to celebrate the signing of the accords, echoing the deeply
felt desire for peace by working people in this country.

    Contrary to the image presented by U.S. officials and the
big-business media, this stage of politics in El Salvador was
reached not because of, but in spite of Washington's efforts. The
U.S. government financed the war and the brutal regime that
carried it out--providing the Salvadoran government with $260
million in military and economic aid in 1991 alone.

    Thousands marched here on October 31, the original
deadline for completing the demobilization, to demand that the
Salvadoran government comply with the peace accords. President
Alfredo Cristiani and senior army officers had made defiant
declarations demanding the FMLN completely disarm before the
government would proceed to implement its pledges to cut the
military and discuss officers involved in human rights violations.

    The FMLN has not projected mass protests, strikes, or land
occupations to pressure the government to fulfill the accords,
relying on its own military forces as leverage. "Our arms are the
only guarantee that the accords will be fulfilled," said Guzman,
explaining why the FMLN had refrained  from meeting the
original deadline for demobilization. "The negotiations and peace
accords are not the result of weakness but are the result of our
military struggle," explained Guzman.

    Following a UN proposal and the announcement by the
FMLN that it would proceed with the demobilization of its
guerrilla forces, a new calendar for the accords was agreed to by
the government, with the final demobilization slated for mid-
December.

    The FMLN has now demobilized 60 percent of its forces. Its
troops are scheduled to give up their weapons, which will then be
destroyed, by December 15.

    The main point of contention today is the purging of a
secret list of 97 to 110 high-ranking army officers implicated in
human rights abuses by an Ad Hoc Commission as part of the
accords. The government does not want the list made public and
reportedly wants to make the changes part of regularly scheduled
retirements and command shifts at the beginning of next year.

    As established in the accords, the National Civil Police (PNC)
will begin to be organized in 1993 and will begin functioning in
1994 as the national police force. Sixty percent of PNC members
are supposed to be newly recruited civilians, 20 percent former
FMLN members, and 20 percent former soldiers from the
Salvadoran military. The FMLN considers the PNC as a guarantee
against further repression by the armed forces once the FMLN is
demobilized.

FMLN SHIFT TO ELECTORAL POLITICS

    The FMLN was formed in November 1980 by a coalition of
five organizations. Massive repression against students, trade
unionists, and peasants closed off all avenues of legal protest,
resulting in the decision by thousands to take up arms.

    While several U.S.-supported regimes were unable to
defeat the rebels, the FMLN could not achieve military victory
over government forces either.

    The initial political program of the FMLN, inspired by the
course advanced by the Cuban revolution and at the time by the
revolution in Nicaragua, called for struggle by workers and
peasants to take power out of the hands of the landlord-capitalist
regime and to act decisively to advance the interests of the
toilers.

    Today the FMLN is proceeding to transform itself to an
electoral party. Each of its member organizations, and the FMLN
itself, have opened public offices across El Salvador. FMLN leaders
say that the 1994 elections will provide real opportunities to
improve conditions for the majority in the country.

    "The purge of the officer corps, demilitarization, and our
participation in the 1994 elections will complete the democratic
revolution," said Commander Nidia Diaz, of the FMLN negotiations
commission, in an interview.

    The FMLN has shifted its principal demands to
"democratization" and "demilitarization." In its newly adopted
program as a political party, the FMLN declares that it represents
the "Salvadoran nation," fights for "democracy and national
development," and raises up the "family as the basic foundation of
Salvadoran society."

    FMLN leaders such as Joaquin Villalobos call for a sharp
break with past positions, claiming a symmetry between "extreme
left and extreme right." Villalobos calls for rejection communism,
which he identifies with the Stalinist anticommunist regimes of
Eastern Europe and the former USSR. "We should correct the idea
that socialism is the elimination of private property, the market,
or opposition," he said.

    "In this framework it is correct to affirm that to enrich
oneself is licit and contributes to progress." Villalobos continued.
"These changes in revolutionary thinking imply the rescue of
family values, property, the nation, religion, individual liberties,
respect for nature, democracy, et."

    Asked about a socialist perspective, Diaz responded, "It is
still good to dream and not forget utopia."

LAND REFORM AND WORKERS STRUGGLES

    Passing through Nacaspilo was Jose Rolando Rodriquez of
the Land Verification Commission charged with making an
inventory of the 4,600 properties ranging from a few dozen acres
of land to hundreds of acres, which the FMLN proposes be
redistributed.

    According to the accords, a three-part agrarian reform will
distribute plots of 3.5 to 12 acres of land to 7,500 combatants of
the FMLN, 25,000 of its supporters and 15,000 former
government soldiers. A total of 407,000 acres is to be given out.
All state properties exceeding 245 hectares [1 hectare = 2.47
acres] are to be distributed and private landlords who volunteer
will have their land purchased for redistribution. Rodriquez
reported that those with poorer quality land are willing to sell at
the government offer. However, the better land belongs to big
landlords who are demanding a higher price.

    There are some 260,000 families without land in a country
of some five million people. Two percent of the population
controls 60 percent of the arable land.

    In early 1991 there were some 48 land occupations by
peasants. On October 22 this year, the national leadership of the
FMLN--in response to demands by the landlords and the
government--issued a statement calling on peasants to cease land
occupations in order to facilitate the fulfillment of the accords.

    The FMLN considers that strikes, as well as factory and
land occupations, are obstacles to forcing the government to fulfill
the accords. The organization calls on workers and peasants to
direct all efforts toward "concertacion"--reconciliation of all
sectors of Salvadoran society. Such a reconciliation "forum" which
includes union and big-business representatives, has been
established ostensibly to reach agreements on labor laws and
wages.

    The economic situation for millions continues to worsen,
however, with unemployment reaching 52 percent. Only 30
percent of those who are employed receive enough to meet their
basic needs. A majority of the population lacks potable water.
There is also a housing shortage. The government continues
payment on the more than $2 billion foreign debt, creating even
greater hardship by forcing deep cuts in social services.

    A number of protests over wages, labor laws, and
privatization of state-owned companies have been called by the
"Intergremial," a newly formed union coordinating body, which
encompasses all union federations in El Salvador including those
that had adopted progovernment positions in the past.

    Humberto Centeno, a national leader of the National Union
of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS), which encompasses a number of
trade union and peasant organizations many of who members
support the FMLN, explained that they have launched a campaign
to reestablish unions that were violently suppressed by the
Salvadoran regime in the 1980s. The UNTS is also trying to
organize at new plants. The organizing efforts have met resistance
from employers and the government who have retaliated with
wholesale firings and plant closings to break the unions. Some
union leaders have been arrested. Union activity is increasing,
however.

    In September, all 600 workers were fired from the U.S.-
owned Sheraton Hotel and were driven out by riot police after
occupying the hotel. There was also a wildcat strike by teachers
during the summer.

    Three sugar refineries, among seven state-owned
companies targeted for privatization, have been occupied by the
workers who have withstood three attempts by the police to
dislodge them.

NEW OPENINGS FOR POLITICS

    Activities such as union organizing and public meetings,
and the availability of books and other literature, represent new
openings for political discussion and work, openings that had been
closed off for some time.

    While threats and some attacks have taken place under the
guise of combating "criminal elements," there have been few
murderous assaults like those that marked the previous decade,
Even notorious figures such as army Colonel Sigifrido Ochoa Perez
denounced recent death threats against government opponents on
October 23, saying that the death squads no longer have a place in
El Salvador.

    Mario Ramos, a FMLN leader, reported that it is possible to
bring political books into El Salvador although there is harassment
and some confiscations. Books by revolutionary leaders like Fidel
Castro, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, and Nelson Mandela were
virtually impossible to obtain before and are in demand.

    Elmer Guzman, back in the Nacaspilo camp, plans to
continue to dedicate himself to political activity. "We know that
with the accords we didn't achieve all we fought for. Now we
must dedicate ourselves to the political struggle," he said.
________
The Militant newspaper is a socialist newsweekly.  An
introductory subscription costs $10 for 12 weeks. Write to The
Militant, 410 West Street, New York, NY. 10014.

** End of text from cdp:reg.elsalvador **